Dancing in the Kitchen with Gluten-Free Girl and The Chef

A few weeks ago, I read about a really fun opportunity to participate in a cooking blog round-up with Shauna Ahearn's awesome blog Gluten-Free Girl and The Chef.  I absolutely love Shauna and her husband and their commitment to making gluten-free food delectable.  They are also committed to whole, nutritious foods.  It's a wonderful blog and Shauna does a great job educating about celiac disease and helping folks make wonderful gluten-free food.  I often refer folks to her blog, particularly this post using a tootsie roll analogy to explain gluten-free baking

Shauna sent out three recipes from her new cookbook, Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef: A Love Story with 100 Tempting Recipes, to those who were participating and asked us to cook them and share about our experiences on September 20th.  I was really excited.  I e-mailed her and said, "I'd love to cook some recipes!  I've made lots of the recipes you've posted and we always love them.  I'm at home waiting for our little 'bun in the oven' to finish baking instead of going back to teaching this year, so I need something to do!"

Well, then that "bun" came a month early.  Now I have a lot to do, like take pictures of my perfect baby in my favorite blue bowl.

 Isn't she delicious?

So, I didn't really have time to make everything, what with being so sick the week before she came and now with her being here.  We've been a little busy.  I felt badly about not fully participating, but not too badly, because what I did make is pretty spectacular.

I did, however, decide that I absolutely could not pass up trying the Chocolate-Peanut Butter Brownies.  Brownies are a favorite of mine anyway, and chocolate has been a crazy craving of mine all this week so far.  In the hospital, I ordered chocolate milk with every single meal.  Speaking of which, I was induced on National Celiac Awareness Day.  Guess what the intake nurse wrote on the white board in my room under "Special Needs"?  She wrote, "glutin free celia disease."  Boy, in the midst of my panic over the health of my baby, I sure was glad to know that nurses seemed to have my auto-immune disease covered. 


Not.  We have a long way to go, and that's why cookbooks like Shauna's are so wonderful and so necessary.  It means that gluten-free folks can eat incredible brownies whenever they want.  Brownies that are so easy to make from scratch that even someone who gave birth to a premie six days ago can make them with ingredients straight out of her pantry.  All except for the baking chocolate.  We don't play with chocolate around here; only the best for my brownies.  Hubby grabbed some of that for me. 

 Baking chocolate is such a tease.  It looks so yummy!

 

Don't be fooled! 

 

That's better.  Much, much better.  You could probably stop there and be happy, but the goodness just keeps getting better.

One of the dry ingredients listed in the recipe is sweet rice flour.  Let me tell you, if you get into gluten-free baking, you can't live without sweet rice flour.  Sweet rice flour changed my life.

  

Here's a hint; buy it (and other gluten-free flours) at Asian food markets.  You will save a ton of dough on your dough.  (Pun most certainly intended.)

Oh look!  A pink pan!  Pink, just like everything else in my life right now.

 

Is there such thing as "Mommy ADD"?  Where was I?  Oh yes, brownies.  Brownies with peanut butter.

 

I can't wait until she's old enough to lick the spoon.  He can though, because it means he'll have to share.  He won't mind too much, though.

 

After all, he'd give her the moon if could reach it.  So I'm pretty sure she can have the spoon.  

Thankfully, these brownies took under a half-hour to cook.  The smell was wonderful wafting through our house.  When I bit in after they finally cooled, I melted.  My words to my hubby?  "Honey, you're gonna wig out.  Totally wig out."  Chocolate and peanut butter is his favorite combo, after all.

 

These brownies really were easy to make and I really enjoyed them.  They stand up better than a typical gluten-free brownie and while they are rich, they are not too rich or too sweet.  They are just right.  Just right, just like her.

Share